103519-theres-only-one-thing-ruining-this-game
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Nah, let's use SSH instead. It's safer To actually respond to your post, free-to-play models have different implications for MMOs than they do for MOBAs. Same model, different perception as it were. MOBAs are expected to be F2P because LoL set that precedent, but when an MMO goes F2P it's viewed as a sign of failure (not always true though). Especially so quickly after launch if they were to go F2P it would likely create an extremely negative perception of the game. | |} ---- ---- Of course it isn't an MMO - you are missing the point. | |} ---- This is a suprisingly accurate statement. | |} ---- So you do get they are making money - without a sub....good. | |} ---- Well its only 10:30 here...plenty of time. Besides die...doesn't die...who cares enjoy what you can screw the rest. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- No. They're making money WITH a sub. They use F2P to get people in the door, and then lock everything behind 40 foot tall paywalls, to the point where if you do want to play, Sub is the best way to go. | |} ---- Xander....that sentence made me laugh without the comma, I did a double take. | |} ---- You're the one missing the point. You're trying to compare apples and oranges. Developing and running an MMO is not the same as developing and running a MOBA. | |} ---- ---- fixed it for you. You can barely do anything in that game without a sub. | |} ---- ---- Yeah, it's my understanding that you either sub or get nickel-and-dimed to death. | |} ---- That would have required them scrapping everything and making an entirely new game instead of Everquest in space. | |} ---- My sister plays. $15 a month is FAR cheaper than paying for your helm slot, the ability to use purples, unlock zones, unlock XYZ. The list never ends. Plus they give you a stipend every month to spend on their cosmetic cash shop for your sub. It's actually not THAT bad of a deal.. the game just.. needs more.. STUFF in it. | |} ---- ---- There. Fixed that for you. All joking aside I think you are making a basic mistake of taking your views and opinions and transferring them to encompass and include the opinions and views of everyone. I am not saying you are wrong, I'm just saying that just because it is that way for you and your friends that does not automagickally make it so for me and my friends. I hated clash of clans. Spent a few minutes in it before identifying it for what it is, a shallow moronic cashgrab. It's like a cozy mugging. If this game had gone Free To Play and reverted to the Pay to Win stylings of clash of clan me and my wallet would *cupcake* of so hard from this game that all NCSOFT stockholders would become pregnant. SWTOR was dull, unoriginal and repetitive. That's why we left. Not because it had a sub. There are many ways to play the MMO genre besides the subscription card and the free to play card. "My" MMO, TSW, stopped playing the subscription card and instead went for a model where you buy the basegame and can play that forever as much as you want. Then additional, optional content is purchaseable along with cosmetic items in the ingame item store. In WS that would be likened to the player paying a one time cost for the basegame and then purchasing the "drops" if they wanted to. But WS probably won't do that. Because they are trying something entirely new, the whole CREDD thing. Which seems like an awesome idea, if it generates revenue. Doom & Gloom shortly after launch is an ancient and well loved internet tradition as I am sure we all know. Unless my memory fails me I think I read something similar to these kinds of threads back at the launch of WoW (and at the release of every subsequent expansion) heralding the "End of the Game". Chillax. Game is new. Maybe there are too many servers and some get consolidated. Maybe the gameworld fragments into too many shards making the worlds look empty. Maybe we are all full of shit and horrible people just wanting to see something pretty fall into the dirt. | |} ---- ---- That right there is the reason I prefer the sub model over microtransactions. | |} ---- ---- I bought one ... for my favorite character ... because it looked freaking AMAZING. Of course, I spend $20 on lunch most days, so there you go. :P | |} ---- ---- I havent even played the game. But if you rather play games than go out for dinner/get drunk/anyotherhobbie. You have "spare money" to spend on real interests, 20 dollars is not that much then. | |} ---- ---- What I find hilarious is I was subbing when they put the free model on the PTR. People who were subbing complained that the free players were get shafted. What you see now in the free to play model is vastly improved to what it was on the PTR and it's still an absolute rip off. | |} ---- ---- again.....micro transaction success. You do see that yes? | |} ---- Huh... What about making the 7-day trial accounts last forever? But the restrictions never get lifted. That is to say, the game is completely free, as long as you never want to go above 15th level, you never want to get a trade skill above tier 1, you never want to join a guild, and you never want to participate in the economy. The servers would feel more crowded. People who do not play frequently/heavily enough to get to 15 within a week would still experience the full trial. Someone who unsubbed could pop in once in a while to see if their pet peeve had been fixed yet. But, don't add in microtransactions and paywalls. Want to have anything more than the base trial account? Buy the full game and then subscribe. Period, the end, no other options. Let the subscription lapse and you can't log in on that account anymore, because it's not a trial account anymore. I don't know... I'm seeing more advantages than disadvantages there. | |} ---- Yea. Poor phrasing on my part. I meant it more as a "never ending line" of $20 items. Not that spending $20 once was insane. Sorry. Still waking up. lol | |} ---- Games have done this before. Including.. iirc.. EQ, EQ2 and the big bertha WoW. It's not a terrible idea. | |} ---- I see what you are hoping would happen, but as others have pointed out cash shop does not mean a quality game. Your reference to SWTOR is the best example of this. While it means they can keep the game running, there business model is not long term retention. It is get them in and make them want to spend real money and then they later move on. Ask anyone there with a sub. If it was not for great guilds and friends not many would have stuck around. | |} ---- You guess wrong. I played CoH. Furthermore, CoH adopted a hybrid model where you could buy shit from a cash shop or sub and get a stipend to spend in said cash shop. NCSoft still pulled the plug, as you well know. | |} ---- you're pleading to the blind devoted white knights im afraid. The game is slowly rickling itself to death. Servers are bleeding yet there's the delusional few who are still defending it. Carbine over estimated and is now paying the price. Much as I love Wildstar it isn't without it's flaws but trying to convince yourself your server is over 30% capacity is a lie. | |} ---- I still don't understand how 2 white mana for a 2/2 with Protection from Black ever became a forum 'thing'. You guys are such Black Lotus's.... | |} ---- I think everyone is okay with the statement that people are leaving the game. But that doesnt mean everyone wants a F2P game. I get that you're mad though, being in Australia and all. This game is not optimized for oceanic playerbase to say the least. | |} ---- But... but.... Pulse Fire Ezreal is bad ass looking. Back on topic, going f2p has a lot of issues of its own. Honestly, population isn't our concern, as long as the queues aren't bad(and they really are not that bad, takes less than a min to get into a pvp match, even with my level 15 alt), and there's plenty of players to gank in the daily zones(which plenty, though sometime I end up getting myself killed) it doesn't matter to us. They matter to Carbine, NCSoft and their investors. And when the end of the quarter reports go out, they will all make a decision that will be best for profit. | |} ---- I played CoH off/on for years. It took NCSOFT quite a while before they gave up on CoH. I am a big Star Wars fan. Played SWG from early days and through most of the crap later on... so, roughly 6-7yrs. Looked forward to SWTOR. As soon as SWTOR went F2P, it became less fun and I quit. Same happened with Star Trek Online. However, Ghost Recon Online (Phantoms) was/is F2P. I spent more on that game than $15/month (on average) for nearly 2yrs. But this game was built around F2P from the start. | |} ---- I don't think that's the argument, at all. I think people are saying "OMG! FAIL! QUICK! LAUNCH THE F2P Balloon!" reactions are annoying, premature.. and even some.. will call it incredibly stupid. I'll go back to my old favorite example. EvE Online. Started with 25k subscribers. Didn't hit 100k subs for about 3-4 years. Now? It's rocking 500k and still sub based. | |} ---- IMHO, Star Trek Online did okay with the transition from subscription to F2P. Part of that is because of the dilithium market. It works sort-of like CREDD. Some players sell it, other players buy it. The currency it's swapped for is the currency purchased with real-life money, so you're in a sense swapping dilithium for CREDD. But, unlike CREDD, you don't use it for subscriptions. You use it for everything else that can be purchased with real money. So except for an extremely small number of not-very-compelling things, you can get absolutely everything the game has to offer for free... if you don't mind working for it. (Just as you can play WildStar for free once you've bought the box, if you don't mind working to buy that CREDD.) And on the back-end, from an accounting standpoint, it's all revenue, because the only source of that currency is players buying it for cash and then trying to buy dilithium with it. (Which there are plenty of reasons to do, if you can't earn enough in-game to satisfy your needs... kinda like platinum in WildStar.) I think the biggest difference is, if you go on vacation for two months, you're not screwed. You can dive back in and start earning dilithium/currency again. With WildStar, if you're playing that way and you let your subscription lapse for any reason, you cannot "reboot" without spending real money. | |} ---- ---- I believe the company did the same thing with Neverwinter online with those crystal things. I do like that system. | |} ---- ---- EVE is also the only intergalactic sandbox MMO currently on the market, and also the pre-eminent sandbox MMO. It has nearly no competition in its niche. Comparing Yet Another Raiding And Vertical Progression Theme Park to EVE is apples to oranges. And there's a couple baskets worth of apples and a handful of oranges. And 500k subs equals less than $100 mil a year. That's less than what GW2 and TOR take home. How much did NCSoft invest in Carbine over the past nine years? Assuming there are 500k subs, as that was what TOR was left with when it went F2P and they have Jedi ferfrigsake. | |} ---- ---- ---- As a teenager I resent this I am more than willing to spend time learning and getting better at the game I love (wildstar) and I agree that easy mode epics and dungeons remove all meaning from the game and I would certainly rather have this than a half baked browser game and I feel it is a tad unfair to judge as all as lazy freeloaders (Some of them are I agree with you there) | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Who cares....let them burn the game to the ground. Then they can be happy seems the only way they will be. | |} ---- This is another good point. At the risk of sounding elitist I'll say that paywalls do keep out some level of undesirable players. There is nothing as exciting as getting yelled at by Russians in DoTA2, let me tell you. Of course paywalls don't keep everything bad out, but it's the lesser of two evils. On the flipside sometimes you do run into nice, patient people in f2p games, but they are by far the minority in most cases. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- That won't work. If that had been done before launch, it would have just caused delays, but now? The game would fall apart. NCSoft would be better off shuttering this game entirely and launching an entirely different game. Hm... if the game gets shut down, what does happen to the intellectual property? I could see this universe being used for single-player adventure games, shooters, RTS games... | |} ---- I'm all for a customization cash shop if its revenue means more playable content, and its inventory can also be earned in-game. Other than that, and maybe a level-capped trial version like WoW uses to get players to try it out, I cast a vote to keep the current sub model. Please no F2P. With F2P comes freeloading riff raff. Yuck. | |} ---- Let me propose one additional change to the set you listed: Make CREDD cost $5 instead of $20, and grant one week of play time instead of 30 days. (That way, the RMT transactions become smaller, and therefore more accessible, resulting in a higher "throughput" and a more stable market. Plus, people who only want to play for one week out of every few weeks can do so. That way there's less of an issue about server population changes whenever one-month increments from launch happen.) | |} ---- Ya ... lower the barrier of entry from $20 to $5 without giving anything away ... sweet. Plus maybe have it operate like LOTRO's housing, where a player can pay for however many weeks they wanted to using any combination of character contributions account-wide. Okay, that could be a rocking F2P system. Easy-access CREDD sales to supplement a customization cash shop and sub revenues - with minimal riff raff. Nice. | |} ---- If I understand you, I believe that is already how CREDD works today. I can buy one on Evindra, use it, buy another on Mikros (the ghetto where my Dominion alts currently live), use it, and see my whole account get an expiration date two months in the future. | |} ---- ---- I did not know that, so yes. Unfortunately I don't get to spend a ton of time in the game, so I personally prefer keeping it K.I.S.S. status quo by paying a sub. Just having it there when I log in works for me. Thus I haven't delved into CREDD other than having a basic understanding of what it is. Though once I can consistently devote time to making good coin in-game, I will definitely consider it. Can a player let CREDD accumulate account-wide? If so what's the max? | |} ---- ---- I lost respect for your opinion as soon as you mentioned F2P... its amazing how many opinions don't even equate a good idea. | |} ---- ---- ---- I hope that the gamers that have no skill, and can't figure out how interrupts work, or can't figure out you can't ALL defend mid on a Bloodsworn match. quit the game and go back to the hardcore 2014 gaming world of flappy bird and candy crush. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Flappy Bird owns most military flight and combat simulators. | |} ---- ---- Absolutely this. It's theoretically possible to play the game without paying anything, but it's totally implausible. To do more than a few dungeons or battlegrounds a week, you need to buy passes - you can't even equip epic-level gear without shelling out for the unlock on the cash shop, and it's not cheap. SWTOR is one big demo without a subscription. | |} ---- ---- Sorry if i stepped on your toes. You should regard yourself as above the general population if you don't fit into the current, spoiled, youth. Of course what i said wont apply to everyone and i have no problem with playing with younger players as long as they show some kind of maturity. | |} ---- ---- ---- I can only speak for myself but I have absolutely no dedication to this game whatsoever. But I am still here. And last night, when my 30 days ran out, I subbed on a monthly recurring payment plan. Merely because I am having fun. It's all it is. Fun. Maybe I am old fashioned but the main reason I play games is for the fun. Not for sport. Not for an alternative, virtual existence. Fun. I am not marrying this game. I am going to have my fun with it. That may last a month, that may last a year. When TSW expands the Tokyo zone (and hopefully removes the aegis swapping cd) I am *cupcake*ing off back there. But I do not hold it at all unlikely that I may very well maintain my subscription here aswell. Because of the fun. Or I may not. Who the *cupcake* cares? edit: also. can we have the autonanny add a space to the *cupcake*s please? would save me a *cupcake*load of editing that. Edited July 31, 2014 by Hatkake | |} ---- ----